The Third House

The Astrological Third House

Looking at the picture, the Third House can be seen as located on the bottom half of the wheel.  The wheel, which represents the earth with YOU at the center, is turning counterclockwise.  The Sun currently filling this position in the photo would be in this position somewhere between 12:30 and 2:30AM, reaching the Ascendant (the far left of the wheel, the midpoint of the 12th and 1st House) at Sunrise.  If you have read my piece on the Ascendant, you may recall the story of the princess' Golden Ball coming back to the surface, representing a physical revelation of Selfhood following a period of subjectivity.

This below the horizon position energizes the experience of COMPARATIVE realities.
This is the final house of the quadrant that starts at the Ascendant, i.e., the realm of Intuitive Awareness. The third house consolidates the 'Who am I' at the First House, and the 'What do I Have' of the Second, and makes comparative observations as to Who and What is effective in the communication and stimulation of the self within a physcial environment.

I was born with the planet Venus in Virgo in the Third House.  Using a form of progression known as the Point of Self, I find my Ascendant (originating point of conscious awakening) nearly exactly on the natal Venus at the time of my brothers birth at the age of 5.  This is particularly interesting given that the Third House is conventionally defined as dealing with Siblings.  Here we deal more with the initial reality of the Other.  The human race is 100% made up with our brothers and sisters of light, but our particular karma in terms of how we are defined versus how our brothers and sisters are defined is worked through in the astrological Third House.

For many, ones self awareness of their personal attributes may lead to pride, or shame, or a number of feelings when communicated to others within the environment.  We are taught in our schools to conform to the mold of what society wants our brothers and sisters to be like.  For some of us, this mold  happens to fit very nicely with the First House conscious I AM, and the attributes of the Second House.  For others, communication may fall on deaf ears, or ears that do not want to hear or assimilate what the native has come to teach or express.  This education begins at home, and when it comes to siblings, it is only natural that natives will be able to recognize and compare what behaviors are encouraged by the parents from those that are discouraged.

My initial relationship with my brother was one of intense feelings of protection.  I did not like my parents as a young child.  I felt an inner light, a connection with something spiritual, that I sought to show him and give to him to help him in dealing with the abusive and disfunctional realities of our early home life.  One of the most memorable and psychologically key experiences of my childhood was the year he was born, a girl in my kindergarden class told me that she was going to sneak into my house and stab my brother to death with a knife.  I stayed awake night after night for what may have been a year after that, making sure that I was there to protect him if she were to come.  Ultimately, my reality was that I was unable to protect him, just as I was unable to protect myself, from the environmental situations which included our place of residence, or neighborhood, or schools, and the poison that my parents fed us physically and psychologically.  If I was able to pass anything to him, it was to help him become aware that the seeds of light within us DID NOT require watering from the parents or the schools.  This light was there from the beginning and grew from within.  This was the only way I knew how to give of this light, although my initial awareness of relationship was the expression of love without the ability to effectively manipulate the environment with it.

It has certainly been my way of being that it takes helping another for me to be stimulated enough to effectively act upon something or to make it happen than it would if it were only myself in need.  My needs never seemed worth a great effort, but the needs of others were motivating.  There are many layers to this.  One can say that perhaps my greatest need was the need to be needed, or the need to be viewed as a source of knowledge and guide within my environment.... one that people looked to when they KNEW that the original source, represented by the parents, the school, the priest, etc, just wasnt working or wasnt right.  Without using this space here to go into intensive detail regarding the psychology of karma of myself, it is true that Venus in the 3rd house indicates my approach to the environment and pool of brothers and sisters.  There is a desire to reach out and share of the self, and at the same time there is great self judgement as to the effectiveness  of my outreach.  Having Venus in Virgo certainly adds to the situation a need to refine the methodology throughout the life in order to effectively express the self.  Adding the natal square of Venus to Saturn in the 12th House, there is a feeling of great unworthiness if I am unable to reach others purely and authentically.  A good example would be writing a poem to a woman that would express my deep love for her.  Upon reciting the poem to her, nerves and insecurities makes me stutter and not communicate the poem the way I envisioned it, essentially turning her off and ruining what the envisioned moment was.  This is an analogy to this part of my consciousness in general.  This very blog that I write, from my perspective, is not for me as much as it is for YOU.  OR that the least, I judge myself in my ability to impart these gems of knowledge to you, and my worthiness for love in return with the effectiveness of this.  Karmically, effective communication is a key word for the 3rd House experience.

In observing the communication of my children, I recall feeling quite angry when my son would communicate to his sister false information.  There was a desire to be respected for knowledge that wasnt yet acquired.  I used this as a time to teach him the truth regarding his claim, but underneath, it doesnt matter what the claim is because right or wrong answers is not the desired result here.  It is a defined name and place within the spectrum of the environment that is worthy of its perception.  In other words, he felt on some level that due to being 5 years his sisters elder, that he was expected to have a greater knowledge base.  (Not coincidently, my children have the precise age difference as me and my brother).  The unconscious desire is to channel the I AM of the First and the resources of the Second to communicate the Authentic Self that needs no other definition.  However, I was able to learn something valuable from this observation, because I realize that it is important to learn the language and the structure and the way of the environment in order to effectively produce any meaning within it.  For myself, it was the worthiness of returned love within it.  I found myself often using denial as punishments to my children (which is what my father did to me), which is a deeper reflection of this complex.  It is telling the children that they need to learn to do things in this way, and once they do they will be worthy of this reward or this harmonious situation, and that I will effect that harmony of their environment by restricting fun activities in order to herd them into correct action.

I have found within myself a system of self reward for when I feel unworthy of reward from my peers or environment.  There is a bingeing level of self destructiveness that comes from this.  There is me protecting myself from being killed by the knife of the mother and the father, but beyond there is a voice inside the head that herds the self into correct action, of focus on learning what I need to learn in order to effectively express what IS THERE and has been within me FROM THE BEGINNING.

We all have a gift, and often what we must do on earth is not so much learn about our inner gift, but learn to create roads and effective means of transporting that gift to the collective.

I recall a client that had Saturn in the 3rd house.  This denotes a special level of karma and the need to truly ground into the foundation of the self as a vehicle for communication.  Stuttering and learning disabilities are more common with Saturn in the 3rd house than any other Saturn placement.  However, during a major transit of this natal Saturn position, my client heard a voice inside him from his spiritual guides, and began channeling information that he would compile into a successful spiritual book.  Blocking collective education his entire life, finally he was able to find the source of information that resonated with his inner self, and effectively communicate who and what he was as one of our brothers.

What we choose to love, and what others choose to love in us, is a big part of the 3rd house reality and especially for myself with Venus in the 3rd house.  Struggle to find love or adequate companionship, someone to hear the voice within you and respond in a way that shows they have been moved, is effectively part of the process of learning how to build those roads and what direction to point them to.  For myself, I often break down and binge on external realities that are not aligned with the direction needed for my self expression, and on one hand being ineffective in this case is punishment for not maintaining discipline (from my karmic perspective), and at the same time an effective means to refine the methodology TO THE VERY EFFECTIVE MEANS of self expression that I seek.

The Second House

My father had an extremely intense stellium of planets (Saturn, Mars and Pluto in Leo) that sat in my natal 2nd house, just opposite my 8th house moon in Aquarius.  My study of astrology helped me to understand the complex within him and how I carried a similar complex of energy.

My father had a great fear of poverty.  He was driven to succeed in what seemed to be a means to an end for the mere acquisition of wealth for himself.  At the age of 12, I recall his going on long business trips for his high executive level 300K a year, all the while leaving my mother with poverty level allowances to support me and my brother.  He saw his family as parasites that put a strain on his  wealth.

Material wealth is only an illusory means through which we can create authentic value.  Without contribution to the people of our lives, material wealth is only a cancer.

On the positive side, my father was insanely jealous of my personal nonconformist will and willingness to embrace my inner value which I always knew had nothing to do with anything that I physically had or inherited.  My early possessions of value, a photographic memory, psychic ability, intuitive knowing, developed subjective perspective and empathic nature, were all acquired over time by efforts throughout many lifetimes.  They were possessions of my soul.

My father wanted to instill in me the value of hard work that must be enacted in order to acquire necessary possessions.  I recall anytime he ever took me out to a store, he would remind me to "Never ask him for anything", and seemed to resent that my mother would ever give me anything that, according to his consciousness set, I didn't earn.

From here I can move into a number of directions regarding depth symbolism here, as the jealousy of a father for the love and respect of a mother is not much different at all from the jealousy of a sibling for the parents, the jealousy of a friend for the attention of a man or woman, or the jealousy of one man over another for his karmic set of circumstances that seem to give him better luck or more love from an unseen source.  This "source" in all of these cases is the Anima and or the Animus.  However, I will do my best to stay focused as much as possible on 2nd house emphasis.

What my father lacks in this case is an awareness of the soul level acquisition, however given the ever present polarity of the 8th house, there is always an awareness that loss may be right around the corner. It is natural for us to hold onto our primary possession....our body; our ego; who we perceive ourselves to be.  There is a part of me that feels deeply that the gifts that I, Bill Walker have, are gifts from the universal source of all that is, and that if I do not use them that it will be especially tragic as I meet my death.  Herein lies the unconscious feeling of guilt unto the feminine, or anima, for not meeting the collective need.  For destroying the trust instilled in each of us by virtue of the fact that we were each born, and each of us born with an energy of which it is our responsibility to give to our collective soul.  As I said earlier, without this contribution, the possessions whether soul or material level, can be much like a cancer.   My fathers attempt at wealth accumulation was an attempt to fight this aspect, the unconscious feminine.  It was unconscious desire to gain the Anima's love and trust through hard work, and to see the result of this devotion earned.  It was unconscious desire to take on the role of the Anima through a lack of trust regarding ones place in the collective body; to self nurture by amassing enough security to assure that hard times could never take too much of a toll.

Bringing the focus back onto myself, I too have faced a similar fear and challenge as my father.  I found myself worrying that my children's lack of focus or mindfulness regarding basic life skills would hurt their ability to draw to themselves the energy they needed to ultimately plant the seeds of the Self within the collective body, i.e., to freely express the authentic self without the restraint that comes with lack of resources or financial struggle.

The "work" that my father and I often projected should be directed to its appropriate place.  Much of this work is intuitive and subjective.  It is submersion into the pool of authentic value, followed by the creative means through which material possessions may be used to express the self, and further, to add value to the collective soul THROUGH the individual.  While at times I would find myself being my father by worrying about my children's ability to meet collective expectations, I had ways of expressing the opposite in order to help my kids embrace their true possessions.  I found myself very emotional regarding my son's attachment to toys as a source of satiation.  I hated it when the grandparents would take them out and get them all the material things that they wanted.  This was the positive side of my father that, although fully unconscious in him, did help me to find my satiation in the inner realm.  I wanted to free my children from the problem I see with so many children and people of all ages these days, and that is that when they have a NEED, that they associate that need with something outside of themselves that can meet that need.  I wanted my children to find the gems of their own inner creative consciousness, and meet their needs for play through that instead of wanting or needing a new toy from Walmart or Target.

When this is all truly examined, it is a silly notion that the accumulation of wealth is relative to one's ability to be who they are.  On one hand, material wealth is meant to be used for the creation and expression of one's authentic spirituality.  However and ironically, it is often through the crisis of material loss that many ever catch a glimpse of who they truly are on this level.  There are both materially rich and poor people who are very centered within their spiritual and authentic value, as well as both rich and poor that are far removed from it.  Determining whether a person is truly centered within their own authentic value in the face of a collective which projects upon them material value, is a  complex issue.  The 2nd house in ones natal chart is where we can find emphasis on a soul's need to embrace Self Worth.  There are many factors that may determine whether an abundance of material wealth may surround one with people that only value them for the surface material and not what is on the inside, or whether a soul will try and try again to climb a corporate ladder or achieve something for someone else's sake, and continue to fail until they fully embrace their own.  Both of these extremes demonstrate a disconnect; somewhat of a loneliness, that manifests itself in the flow of resources from the collective to the individual, or vice versa.  However, if we take the above example of the child's desire for a toy, we see a collective that so desperately wants to be needed by the individual, and at the same time a child that so desperately wants to be needed by the collective.  We do not have a healthy flow in this regard, as we live in a society where people are dependent on a collective at the expense of their own personal wealth, and at the same time a collective that is dependent on people that function at this level to keep it running the way it is.  And why?  Because the few that control the economy today are afraid of losing their own wealth.  Because the many are in need of a massive transformation of their values.  Material wealth does not add to our inner riches, and on the other hand, collective obsession with this is distraction and a symptom of a society detached from its spirit and the wealth of the soul.

A healthy 2nd house starts with the energy within that is a result of the souls cumulative lifetimes of acquisition.  The soul ultimately becomes aware that all embodied experiences are an opportunity for the soul to acquire something of worth, and add his/her own value to it, giving back to the collective body and thereby making the collective body richer because of it.  What is the great worth that lies within you?  The ability to heal others?  The ability to build structures that makes it easier for us to live and grow food?  A special attunement to nature and the ability to teach others how to live more in harmony with it?  A special attunement for art and music, and the ability to keep others in touch with the energies that unite us all?  The 2nd house is a part of the subjective realm of the wheel in which we must be reminded that everything that we need we already have, and through each experience whether rich or poor, we have an opportunity to transform ourselves and others into a healthy body that values first and foremost the spirit within us.